'Nobody Knows': The Mystery Of Where Your Personal Facebook Data Goes

Earlier this year in March, two senior Facebook engineers who have a combined 20 years of experience between them found themselves perplexed when asked about the company’s mishandeling of private user information stemming from the ongoing Cambridge Analytica lawsuit, according to a new report. 

What Happened: The hearing transcript obtained by The Intercept centered on one critical issue: the engineers were asked, “what information, precisely, does Facebook store about us, and where is it?”

Facebook engineering director Eugene Zarashaw responded, “I don’t believe there’s a single person that exists who could answer that question, it would take a significant team effort to even be able to answer that question.”

Daniel Garrie, the court appointed special master who pegged the question, was attempting to get the engineers to provide conclusive accounting of where private data could be stored in roughly 55 Facebook subsystems.

Neither veteran engineer knew the answer and struggled to say what may be stored in the subsystems.

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The engineer was again puzzled when asked how the social media giant could find every piece of information connected to a certain user account.

“It would take multiple teams on the ad side to track down exactly the — where the data flows. I would be surprised if there’s even a single person that can answer that narrow question conclusively.”

Why It Matters: No employee, veteran or oterwise, should have access to a user's private information, and according to Facebook spokesperson Dina El-Kassaby, the business takes great care to eliminate any security vulnerabilities.

“We have made — and continue making — significant investments to meet our privacy commitments and obligations, including extensive data controls,” Kassaby said to The Intercept.

The Cambridge Analytica lawsuit dates back to the 2010s, when the British consulting firm Cambridge Analytica amassed millions of Facebook users' personal information without their permission, mostly for the purpose of political advertising.

Facebook, now Meta Platforms Inc META, dramatically agreed to settle the lawsuit in August, one month before CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s scheduled deposition.

Photo: Courtesy of Anthony Quintano on Flickr